Davis Double - DONE! - Triple Crown Winners

Sorry for the delay on this...been kind of busy

Well we lucked out with the weather! 57F as we set out on the 200 mi ride and a high of about 90F by the last climb at mile 136. Compare that to the 105F temperatures of last year and we were lucky!

We had the company at the start of Phil and Jeff from Cycle Folsom and we started off at about 5:30am - just as the horizon was starting to lighten. We were in a good sized paceline for about 15 miles but as the pace started to climb to 22-24mph Lisa and I decided that we would dole out our effort at a slightly slower pace. We saw Phil and Jeff at the first stop ( about 23mi) and left before they did... and never saw them again - since they must have passed up on one rest stop and went on ahead. We saw them the next day at the Tour of California Stage 1 and they indicated they completed the ride in 13 hours - Well Done!

We made good time averaging 18+ on the flats and Lisa was nice enough to wait for me at the top of the climbs :). After a stop at that base of the 7 mi climb to Cobb we headed up the biggest climb of the day- the grade was mostly in the 8-10% but a few sections of 14% grade and the rising heat made me drop off the pace and come in to the rest stop a mile from the top a handful of minutes behind Lisa. Lisa had an advantage over me though since she had her sumo wrestler thumb puppets to take her mind off the steepness, and heat :) ...Lisa was waiting with a coke for me :)

The next two climbs were not bad but the temperatures were climbing and Lisa struggled to take in food. As well as we started south after mile 145 we had a bit of a headwind but luckily it was flat of slightly downhill for most of the remaining 50 miles. Since we were out of the climbs and back in my element ( the flats:) I did a fair bit of the pulling as Lisa was beginning to feel the lack of fuel.

We took a few extra minutes at the 2nd and 3rd last stops and but rode by the final stop (only 7 miles from the end). We ended up in the dark by the time we finished but were pleasantly surprised at our on bike times - about 13hr for Lisa and 13:15 for me (due to the slower climbs) giving us an average over the 203 miles of about 15.6mph - an improvement over the Solvang Double and Camino Real...

Now I think we will give the double centuries a rest and do a few of the other things that we have been neglecting as we trained to do the 3 doubles :)

Regards

Ron and Lisa